Sunday, 15 February 2015

Crying when you’re not really upset takes planning. You can’t expect to
just turn up at a funeral and switch on the tears. You need a memory to tap into.
On the way to the church, my face pressed against the window of my mum’s old
Ford, I thought about my dog that had been hit by a bus when I was six. He was
an untidy Labrador called Adam. He slept on the end of my bed and left strands
of saliva and charcoal coloured hairs on the sheets. One morning, he had been
hit by a number 17 bus, after scrabbling under the garden fence in pursuit of a
cat before trying unsuccessfully to chase it across the road. I’m not usually
emotional, so finding a memory to use had taken some thought. It was the last
time I could remember crying for any length of time, so I thought about Adam
with his sad eyes, lying dead beside the kerb, and it was enough to bring the
first tears.

While the priest droned in his finest funereal tone and gesticulated skywards,
I stood to the rear of the church, holding my mum’s arm, wiping salted tears on
the back of my hand. She comforted me by stroking my hair and rubbing my neck. It
was a convincing scene, and I knew that my cover was safe – people would see the
distraught fifteen year old mourning the loss of a friend and never suspect a vengeful
boy who had murdered him in cold blood.

I bowed my head in feigned mourning, watching ants file past my feet in
a ragged line. Fierce sunlight filtered blue and green through stained glass
windows, warming my arms, lighting slow moving streams of dust. Despite the
heat outside, the stone floors and pillars inside the church were cool to the
touch. Two great fans whirred and hummed as they rotated slowly, blowing warm
air over the bowed heads of congregation. The priest was talking about the next
life and how Anthony was happier now. I kept wondering if he would spend
eternity with a caved in skull – just walking around in Heaven with blood on
his face and matted hair and a triangular looking head. For some reason, the
Heaven in my imagination was filled with ivory white clouds, and even when I
tried to replace them with a seemingly more realistic rainforest, intersected
by crystal streams and lit by patches of pure sunlight, the clouds kept
returning, so I gave up trying to stop them, and watched a bloodied Anthony stroll
around on a cloud beneath a perfect sky.

The priest invited Anthony’s uncle to the lectern, who stood hunched, red-eyed
and gaunt, and eulogised about the lovely boy Anthony had been: helpful, kind,
inquisitive and intelligent. It was all drivel, as Anthony had been a spiteful
thing, full of bad temper and cruel jokes. He was the nastiest fifteen year old
in school and plenty of people would take years to rebuild their self-esteem
after he had flattened it – honed in on their weakest points, darkest fears and
then prodded and probed with endless taunts and jibes. One girl, I forget her
name, had drunk a pineapple juice laced with paracetamol after six months of
him mocking her weight. Her mother had found her vomiting blood and she had
survived, if a bit damaged.

I stopped crying for a while as my eyes were sore. A projector screen clicked
and hummed as it unrolled from its mounting; first blue, then unfocused, then finally
a photograph of Anthony blowing candles out on his eighth birthday cake. This
was followed by pictures of him looking smug or unpleasant in various locations
around his home: eating heavily buttered toast at the breakfast table, slumped
on the sofa, gripping his sister in a headlock. The pictures were accompanied
by Elgar, which drowned the sobs of the congregation, but seemed oddly
discordant in the context.

As the slideshow finished, my mother gave me a comforting hug, and
whispered words of encouragement, telling me how brave and strong I was, so I
cried a little more, to keep my cover secure. She was a good Christian woman
and attended church every Sunday, sometimes accompanied by me when I could find
no reasonable excuse, and sometimes by my father when he wasn’t abroad, like he
was that day. She was petite and pretty, tanned from gardening in the May sun.
She wore black, as we all did (I was dressed in my only suit, a shade too big,
the trousers hanging low at my waist). She was a kind mother, and I remember
her being softly spoken and shy in public. When I was younger, she made up
stories filled with anthropomorphic animals, dramatic weather and improbably
cheerful endings. I remember one about a hedgehog who was lost in the snow, was
rescued by a squirrel and spent Christmas eating acorns by the fire. At the
time I was worried that hedgehogs didn’t like acorns, but I never mentioned it.

After the slideshow the priest talked about death some more and how it
was just another part of life and how the people we had known were still
looking down on us and how they never really moved on but watched and waited
for us to join them. I looked up and wondered if Anthony was looking down how
he would be feeling. Pretty angry, I thought, having his life cut short by a
collapsed stone wall. Except, I guessed, that in the afterlife he might get
told the truth, or maybe watch it back in some Heavenly replay, and see that
the wall had not fallen by itself - I had pushed it on him. It was not exactly
a premeditated attack. I fully intended to kill Anthony at some point, but
seeing him laying there, his evil frame snoozing in the shade, taking a break
from tormenting the other kids, I had made a pretty quick decision. I saw the
loose stones in the upper layer, manoeuvred myself into position then pushed
with all my strength, sending a hefty stone from the upper layer directly onto
his head. As he lay there gasping and twitching, I lifted the stone as high as
I could then dropped it onto his head for a second time, just to make sure the
damage was terminal.

He would be angry, that was for sure.

Anthony’s mother screamed and sobbed and seemed close to hysteria as
the ceremony finished and the pall bearers lifted the coffin onto their
shoulders. The slow walk out seemed the most emotional bit so I cried some more
and hugged my mother just so everyone could be sure I was upset, even though I
was thinking more about an iced drink from the café opposite the church.

Outside, the procession made its slow way to the graveyard, but we hung
back with some of the other schoolchildren and their parents, leaving the final
moments to the close family. For a boy who had caused so much hatred there was
a good turnout from our school, although most had been dragged along by their
parents, and were probably grateful their tormentor was dead. We stood silent by
the flint walls of the church, bathed in warm sunlight, surrounded by the smell
of hyacinth and roses, listening to the wailing mother and the hum of distant
traffic.

If Anthony had been there he would have been causing trouble; pushing
someone, sneering, making whispered comments, making lewd gestures at the girls
until they cried and ran away. School would be a better place without him. In a
way, my actions had made me a hero, although no-one would ever know, and my
actions might not exactly fit the definition.

Anthony had tried it with me as he had to everyone, of course. We were
left alone in the school changing rooms after sport – football in the dry heat,
our clothes and bodies layered in fine dust. I was one of the last to finish changing,
and I had been pulling my jacket on when I realised too late he was behind me
with a can of heat spray, catching me in the eyes as I spun around then kicking
me in the ribs as I hunched on the floor in agony.

Monday, 17 February 2014

For most of my life I had felt rather
insignificant - sidelined by my own mediocrity. I had watched many of my
friends and family follow successful careers while I had languished in the
teaching profession – noticed more for my inadequacy than any great skill or
merit. However, the events of the previous Christmas term, when I had somehow
produced a watchable school play and survived an Ofsted inspection, had landed
me in the favour of the Headmaster, who believed that I was the man to reverse
Radley Hill’s declining fortunes. After a brief and uncontested interview
process, I had been awarded the position of deputy head, which had not made me
too popular with the rest of the staff, but did mean that I had a bigger office
and far fewer lessons to teach.

Consequently, on a warm May morning, while
the rest of the staff were busy trying to teach, I sat in my office and felt
smug. My pay had almost doubled, I had a new found authority, and my office had
a splendid view of the woodland behind the school. I was looking forward to
spending many mornings in a similar fashion. The great benefit of joining the
leadership team was that there was always something I could pretend to be
doing. I could wander into the staffroom shaking my head sadly saying ‘these
data reports are jolly tricky.’ I could carry a clipboard and every now and again
stand in corridors making notes about nothing in particular. I could keep
emailing the Headmaster with stock phrases about the ‘learning journey’ and
‘metacognition’, or any other teacher speak that turned up on the TES. If there
was anyone who could make themselves appear busy while doing nothing, it was
me.

After
a few enjoyable minutes watching clouds roll across the sky, I dusted my shelves
and put my books into alphabetical order. I positioned an array of pens and
pencils next to my diary, which was open on the first week of May, and
noticeably blank. I opened my laptop so that if anyone came in I could be
concentrating hard on the screen, muttering about progress and levels. I also
used my espresso machine for the first time. It was my gift to myself after my
promotion – a De’Longhi, black, with metallic trim. It made an excellent
espresso, and I savoured the drink with my eyes closed.

My relaxation was ruined when there was a
knock on my door.

‘Come in,’ I said.

Mr Dale’s burly frame filled the doorway. He
was the school’s rugby playing geography teacher. He had a recently blackened
eye and a chilli sauce stain on his tie. He was unusually agitated.

I stared at my laptop screen and drummed my
fingers on the desk.

‘This data looks worrying,’ I said. I’m sure
we can squeeze more progress than this.’

‘There’s a bit of an emergency,’ he said,
which was disappointing, because he seemed to be ignoring my excellent portrayal
of a busy deputy head.

‘Just a bit of an emergency?’ I said.

For some reason his arrival had reminded me
of my hidden supply of food. I searched in my biscuit drawer for a lemon cream -
one of the five superior types of biscuit I had bought in abundance.

‘Well, maybe a lot of an emergency. Mr
Winters has been taken hostage.’

The lemon creams were as excellent as I had
expected. I offered one to Mr Dale who shook his head.

‘Taken hostage by terrorists?’

‘By a student. Some boy in year 10 who claims
Mr Winters was ignoring his rights.’

‘Does this boy have a gun?’

‘A staple gun. I presume it’s loaded.’

‘Right.’

I drank some espresso. I had not expected my
first week as deputy head to include a hostage situation. Mentally, I was more
prepared to follow relaxing with a quick sleep.

‘You should alert the Headmaster,’ I said, making
an excellent decision.

‘He’s away at a conference.’

‘The police?’

‘What if they take too long?’

‘Do you think I have to deal with this?’ I
said, which was a genuine question. I was still coming to terms with what my
new role actually meant, other than less marking.

‘I think so. You are in charge.’

I smiled, despite my internal anguish.

‘Lead the way,’ I said, and put two lemon
creams into my pocket in case the situation turned into a lengthy affair.

I followed Mr Dale through the long corridor
that led to the art rooms. We passed the toilets that smelt of smoke and
hastily applied deodorant. Two year nine boys were leaning on the wall looking
suspicious.

‘No smoking in school,’ I said.

‘Soz,’ said one boy.

Paintings of varying quality lined the walls
of the art corridor. Several members of staff were gathered by an oil painting
of a blue horse standing on a purple cloud. Its legs were disproportionate, but
it was infinitely preferable to the hellish portrait of student’s cat that
looked as though it had been reanimated some months after its death.

‘Thank goodness you are here,’ said Miss
Waters, who looked overwhelmed by the situation.

‘Indeed,’ I said.

The staff looked hopefully at me as I
observed the closed door that led to Mr Winter’s classroom. Their silent
expectation was awkward to say the least, and I waited unsuccessfully for one
of them to suggest something useful.

‘We need a plan of action,’ I said,
considering at what point any act of heroism would result in personal danger.
There was the potential to appear a dedicated professional by diffusing the
situation brilliantly with some well-chosen phrases and tactful humour. There
was also the potential to take a staple through the eye which was far less
appealing.

‘Maybe you should all move back,’ I said,
deciding to take the professional approach. ‘I will deal with this.’

I approached the door and listened carefully.

There was silence within.

‘Hello,’ I said.

‘Alright,’ said a boy, whose voice seemed
familiar.

‘Is that Harry?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Is everything ok in there?’

‘Not really. Mr Winters said my painting was
poor.’

‘Was it?’

‘I guess. I tried to paint my house but I
forgot what it looked like.’

‘The house you live in now?’

‘Yeah. I only saw it this morning but it’s
hard to remember stuff when you get to school. I got stressed and it ended up
all wonky and the wrong colour.’

‘I see.’

‘He still should be praising me though. It’s
good for my esteem.’

This was a fair point.

‘Well I’m sure we can find a solution,’ I
said. ‘Mr Winters?’

‘Yes,’ he said, somewhat muffled.

‘Are you prepared to give this boy some
positive feedback so we can resolve this crisis?’

‘Absolutely,’ he said, sounding more cheerful
than expected given the circumstances.

‘Harry,’ I said. ‘I propose we make a truce.’

‘A what?’ said Harry.

‘A truce. We all agree to be friends and
everyone gets to go about their business as usual. Mr Winters will say
something nice to you, you will say sorry then I will go back to my office and
carry on analysing some very tricky and important spreadsheets.’

I looked at the staff during my final
comment, making sure they had heard how busy and important I was.

‘Fine,’ said Harry.

Mr Winters cleared his throat.

‘Well done for trying to draw your house. It
can be very hard to remember what your own house looks like, but you did a
great job.’

‘Sorry for ruining the lesson and threatening
you with this stapler gun,’ said Harry.

A click and a scream followed.

‘So,’ said the Headmaster. ‘It seems that on
your first day as deputy head a member of staff was admitted to casualty with a
facial wound.’

Although it was difficult to be certain, he
did not look happy. The situation had not worked out as I would have hoped. Mr
Winters had received a staple through the lip after Harry had lost
concentration during his apology and somehow managed to pull the trigger. He
had been rather roughly escorted to our detainment room by Mr Dale where he had
claimed that his behaviour had been caused by an eighteen hour gaming session fuelled
by energy drinks the previous night and been booked in for some regular
counselling.

‘Would you like a lemon biscuit?’ I said,
reaching into my pocket. This would have definitely worked on Mr Stevens, our
absent deputy head, who was easily swayed by anything containing sugar.

The Headmaster was made of sterner stuff. He
was dressed immaculately in a pale grey suit with a white shirt and burgundy
tie. His office was a reflection of himself – everything was beautifully
arranged and symmetrical. There was a scent of coffee infused faintly with
lavender room freshener. The only hint of a weakness in his façade came from
the tiredness around his eyes; no doubt a product of trying to raise our
failing school out of the depths of incompetency before Ofsted returned and
closed us forever. The previous Ofsted report had given notice to improve. This
was unlikely given high levels of incompetency displayed by the teaching staff
and students alike.

‘No,’ he said.

I put the biscuit back in my pocket and
studied the carpet.

‘You and I are the ones who are going to
change this school. We are on a journey together, a journey to a better place,
where our students can attain grades that are nearly national average. We are
on a journey to a place where our students can leave this school with their
heads held high as esteemed members of the community. We may have been through
stormy seas, battered by strong winds, lashed by fierce rains, but we are
unflinching in our duty to this school and its students.’

I dared to look up at the Headmaster. His
face was flushed with the passion of his speech. I wondered if technically he
was insane. It seemed possibly. His speeches were terrifyingly dictatorial. It
seemed appropriate for me to respond in some way.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I will fix
everything.’

‘You will,’ said the Headmaster.

Sitting alone in my office several minutes
later even an espresso and opening a second packet of biscuits (triple
chocolate) could not raise me from my gloom. I had expected being deputy head
to bring some responsibility, but I had not thought it would include being
instructed to fix the entire school. I wasted some time checking my emails. I
found the usual nonsense: complaints from parents, adverts for pointless
teaching conferences and some more data and tracking sheets that I would not be
reading.

After a few more minutes of procrastination I
took a notebook (black, leather-bound and bought with my new deputy head budget)
from my drawer and stepped out into the corridors of the school to start
designing my plan that was somehow going to change the lives of the seven
hundred people who attended Radley Hill every day.

‘Whattup, sir?’ said a small boy with floppy
hair who lounged against the wall outside of my office.

‘Is that a real word?’ I said.

‘Eh?’

‘Never mind. Should you be in some kind of
lesson?’ I checked my watch. It was 12 o’clock, midway through the second
session of the day.

‘S’pose.’

‘Which lesson should you be in?’

‘Maths.’

‘Does that generally take place in a
classroom?’

‘Yeh.’

‘So should you be in that classroom during
your maths lesson? Doing maths?’

‘Yeh. It’s long though.’

‘Long?’

‘Long. Like boring.’

‘Right. Follow me,’ I said. ‘There should be
no standing in corridors during lessons. Back to maths.’

I made a note in my book:

1.Prevent students from standing in corridors during lessons.

It took us several minutes to make the long
walk to the maths department. I tried to ignore the shouting and general
anarchy that was taking place in many of the classrooms we passed. My approach
to improving the school was going to be organised and systematic. My first
priority was to return the boy, who told me his name was Mike, to his lesson.

‘Mrs Mutton,’ I said, opening the door to her
classroom, ‘I have found a student who is missing your lesson.’

Unfortunately it transpired Mrs Mutton was
also missing.

The collection of year ten students in the
room paused their card game and looked up. There was a distinct smell of
cigarettes in the room. Most of them had loosened their ties and removed their
blazers. Someone had written ‘Mrs Mutton is a well good teacher’ on the
whiteboard.

‘Where’s your teacher?’ I said.

‘She left, sir,’ said a girl who was eating
her lunch on her maths book. She had sandwiches, crisps and chocolate biscuits
spread across both pages.

‘Did she say where she was going?’

‘Hard to say, sir,’ said a boy with his tie
wrapped around his head.

‘Why?’

‘She was crying a lot when she went, sir. She
said something about a zoo. Then she sobbed and went.’

‘I see.’

‘She’s not the first teacher to leave in the
middle of the lesson but it’s normally because we’ve thrown stuff at them or tied
tying them up. Must’ve been upset about something else, I guess.’

I looked at the absolute apathy and
negativity that slumped before me. I had seen many classes like this before,
and I knew that Mrs Mutton, who was one of our more dedicated members of staff,
had broken under the pressure of trying to motivate through the indifference.

‘Perhaps we should all do some maths?’ I
said.

Mrs Mutton had written ‘Algebra’ at the top
of the whiteboard in large, green letters. I assumed that was the topic of the
day. Most of the students looked at me with at least a vague interest.

‘Algebra,’ I said, ‘is like maths but with
letters not numbers. It’s a kind of pretend maths.’

‘Then why are we doing it?’ said a girl, who
might have been called Emily, and looked like she had fallen into a bucket of orange
food dye.

‘Because it’s the kind of maths that really
clever people use – like astronauts and physicists.’

‘Astronauts aren’t real,’ said Emily. ‘My mum
said the Americans made them up to win World War II.’

The lunch bell rang, and algebra was
forgotten as the students abandoned their books and headed out of the room in a
shambolic fashion.

That evening I sat in the lounge and read
back through my notebook. I had collected several ideas for improving the
school. After my initial observation that students should be made to stay in
their lessons, I had added the following:

2. Teachers should stay in their classrooms
during lesson time.

3. Students should avoid gambling and
smoking, especially during lesson time.

4. English teachers should not attempt to
teach maths.

5. Teachers should avoid throwing things at
students, even if they have been exceptionally annoying all day.

I had added the last point after an afternoon
incident during which Mrs White, a history teacher, had thrown a board rubber
at a student who had loudly explained that he thought the Nazis sounded cool
and he would have definitely joined them. Luckily it had been a sponger board
rubber, not one of the old style wooden ones, and it had harmlessly bounced off
the student’s forehead. Also, it had not taken long for me to convince him that
if he went home and told his mother about the incident I would inform the
government about his Nazism and he would be trialled as a war criminal.

‘I think school might be in an even more
hopeless state than I thought,’ I said to Malcolm. ‘I am not sure I have the
skills or resources to fix it.’

Malcolm was my housemate. We lived together
in a small village in an untidy cottage. It had taken me some time to forgive
him after he had told the police we had been accidentally responsible for the
death of an old woman. After a few frosty evenings, and the police dropping all
charges, we had returned to our usual habits of watching bad television or
drinking in the local pub, where Malcolm still worked as the barman.

At that moment he was watching Jaws and eating jam with a spoon.

‘Fix what?’ he said.

‘The school. Remember what I’ve been saying?
The school is failing horribly and the headmaster wants me to turn everything
around. He said so this afternoon.’

‘Get better teachers.’

‘It’s not that simple.’

‘Or students. Switch them for ones that do
work.’

‘I don’t think you’re helping.’

And that was the end of the conversation.
Malcolm clearly found the shark more engaging than me.

I sat with my own thoughts and my notebook.
Outside it was still light. I could hear the distant shouts and cheers of the
village cricket team practising. It was possible that spring was in the air,
but the smell would never have competed with the stale odour of Indian food and
damp that hung around our cottage.

I ran back through my notes from the day.
There was nothing particularly inspiring. Radley Hill had dipped for so many
reasons. Many of the teachers, myself included, were ineffectual and tired. The
students had low expectations of themselves. The parents were indifferent.
Funding for new facilities was non-existent. The outlook was bleak.

‘Pub?’ said Malcolm, as onscreen the shark
exploded.

‘I guess,’ I said, and left my thinking for
the following day.

‘And what solutions have you created?’ said
the Headmaster, as I sat in his office the next morning. He looked tired and
pale. I noticed his top button was undone. This was a bad sign from a man so
terrifyingly fastidious.

‘Well,’ I said, and opened my notebook. At
that point I wished that I had declined Malcolm’s offer of a trip to the pub
and done some more work. I spent a few seconds trying to read my own writing.

‘Well what?’

‘What we need is to improve the school.’

‘I know that. How?’

‘We need to create a learning environment
where our students actually make some progress.’

‘Yes.’

The Headmaster was not looking impressed with
my analysis of the situation so far. His face seemed to be changing from a pale
grey to pink and I assumed possibly to red if I did not manage to come up with
some kind of solution. The high-esteem he had held me in after my triumphant
Shakespearian production the previous Christmas seemed to have been forgotten
after my promotion to deputy head and the problems the school had found itself
in.

‘I think,’ I said, ‘that we need an expert.
We need to hire ourselves a behaviour expert who can turn these kids around and
get them learning.’

Friday, 14 February 2014

For the next two days, Robbery, Murder and Cups of Tea is free on Amazon. This humorous novella is just over 29,000 words long and tells the story of a supermarket manager who wishes he was a detective. When one of his neighbours is murdered, he gets his chance to investigate.The first two chapters are posted below.

Sunday, 9 February 2014

In a small English village, one inhabitant was planning
an unlikely career change.

‘I think I might
become a private detective,’ said Ray.

He sipped his tea
and waited for a response.

None came.

Laura appeared to
be ignoring him, which was not unusual. She was watching a foreign film,
possibly French, with English subtitles. A man was standing on a bridge at
night. At least it seemed to be at night; in black and white it was hard to
tell. One thing was certain - it was raining. Or the television was broken. He
assumed the man was in a suicidal mood and was contemplating jumping into the water
below. It looked a long way down, and he wondered how far you could fall into
water and still survive. It probably depended on the position of your body on
impact. Face-first could be disastrous, even off a very small bridge,
especially if the water was shallower than expected. He would check on the
Internet later.

Despite his wife’s
indifference, he decided to continue talking, mostly because he wanted to share
his ideas with someone, even if they were not listening.

‘I thought it could
be a way to make some extra money,’ he said. ‘Not a fortune, but just a few
pounds. Although, thinking about it, private detectives must get paid a fair
amount of money, depending on their success rates. Sherlock Holmes always
seemed rich. Although, he might have been rich before he began detecting. I
suppose that does seem likely. Anyway, money isn’t everything. I could do small
cases at first. Finding lost wallets. Or children. That sort of thing.’

Laura bit into an
apple and Ray realised for the first time that she was crying. She wiped her eyes
with a tissue from the box she kept beside her. It was a box which had to be
replaced frequently, as she often cried during films. Ray had tried to
encourage her to watch less emotional ones. ‘No one cries during Alien,’ he had said, but she had ignored
him as always. She seemed to like crying at the television, but not at real
life - she never cried at real life. Even at funerals. Or when chopping onions.
Ray cried uncontrollably at both.

On screen the man
decided against a watery grave and walked into the darkness accompanied by
orchestral music. Ray wondered how different his life would be if he was
accompanied by music throughout his daily routine. Walking to the pub would be
more dramatic with Wagner. Stacking shelves would be quicker with Metallica.

‘I was just
thinking it could be a bit of a hobby. Make the evenings more interesting. Probably
just be out for a couple of hours after dinner. You would barely miss me. You
might even prefer it.’

She would definitely
prefer it, he was sure of that. Being married involved even less communication
than he had imagined. He wondered how long it would be before they spent their
evenings in separate rooms. Or houses.

Laura sat with her
legs hanging over the arm of the sofa. She wore a cream, silk dressing gown and
her skin was still pink from the bathwater she had been soaking in for at least
an hour. She filled the room with soft scents of lavender and vanilla. She took
another bite of her apple and chewed. The film paused for an advert break. A
woman with digestive issues seemed considerably happier after eating strawberry
yoghurt. A Hollywood star looked enigmatic and serious advertising a new perfume.

Ray waited for
Laura to speak. The film resumed and the man sat alone in a café staring
mournfully out of the window.

‘Ray,’ said Laura, before
pausing to bite into her third apple and wipe a stray tear from her left cheek.
‘You find it challenging enough running the local supermarket. Maybe you should
concentrate on your day job? People would hate to see you lose focus and for
the cereals to end up in just any order. It would cause chaos.’

‘Well,’ he said, and
then ran out of words.

During the year since
their wedding many of their evenings had passed in a similar fashion. Laura spent
long periods of time relaxing in the bath, phoned friends, watched romantic films
with happy endings and ate a variety of healthy foods, usually involving fruit.
Ray wandered around the house, drank tea, visited the pub alone and drew up
plans for making himself wealthier. So far his plans had all failed, mostly in
the conceptual stage.

‘You have all these
ideas, Ray,’ said Laura.

He was expecting,
or hoping, for her to say something else, but she began eating seedless grapes
and returned what little of her attention she had given him to the television.

When they were
first engaged many people, including his father, had expressed their surprise
at how beautiful she was. He was reminded of those comments as she ran her
fingers through Titian hair and stretched her slender legs. ‘Why would a woman
like that marry you?’ said his father. It was a fair question, if a bit
uncalled for, and one that Ray tried not to ponder too deeply in case he found
some uncomfortable answers.

He left her alone
in the lounge and headed to the kitchen to make tea. Ray liked tea and he was capable
of drinking up to fifteen cups a day, which had the added advantage of creating
numerous work breaks. Not that he was lazy at work. He ran the supermarket with
surprising efficiency. Still, there were plenty of occasions when a tea was
necessary to recover from a particularly troublesome customer.

‘I can be a
detective,’ he said to himself, as he sat at the kitchen table and sipped his
tea.

It was late October
and raining. No one had been particularly surprised to learn that it was
already one of the wettest months since records began, which had initiated many
conversations about climate change in The White Dragon. None of them had been
very conclusive. The landlord had argued that climate change meant that Britain
was rising and floating towards France. Tony was sure that changes in the Gulf Stream
were going to send the Earth spinning off its axis straight into the sun. Ray’s
theory that it might make the weather harder to predict had been universally
dismissed.

He briefly
considered visiting The White Dragon for a pint, but it was raining with
increasing vigour, and he was not overly keen to get wet, even on the four
minute walk it would take him to reach the local. He was content to sit and
ruminate on his new career path. He was confident that even in quiet English
villages there were occasional robberies and murders. Once he had built up some
experience he liked the idea of investigating some of them himself. He had no
formal training, unless his GCSEs in chemistry and biology were relevant, but
qualifications were not going to stop him. There would be plenty of opportunities
to start small and local: lost pets, stolen garden furniture, investigating the
odd extra marital affair. The inhabitants of Diddlebury would be more than
happy to pay for resolutions to such cases, especially if they concluded in the
exposure and humiliation of one of their neighbours.

‘Case solved,’ said
Ray, as he imagined rugby tackling a particularly violent burglar outside the
bakery.

‘Talking to
yourself is a sign of idiocy,’ said Laura, as she breezed in and out of the
kitchen to collect a kiwi fruit and a spoon.

‘Or genius,’ he
said. ‘Einstein probably talked to himself constantly about gravity - though
maybe that was Newton.’

‘And no trying to
be a detective,’ called Laura from the lounge. ‘Remember to just concentrate on
running the supermarket. Make sure there are enough bread rolls and other
important things.’

‘Absolutely,’ said
Ray.

He watched the rain
and thought about some of the possible reasons why Sherlock Holmes never
married.

The next day, Ray was finding it exceptionally hard
to concentrate at work.

‘Have there been
any robberies or murders in the village lately, Julia?’

Julia was a woman
in her early fifties who had worked meticulously and earnestly for local shops
for most of her life. She was divorced, played bridge, was below average
height, wanted to cruise the Mediterranean when she retired and seemed to have
an endless collection of floral dresses. On that particular day she wore a blue
and yellow tulip print that muddled Ray’s vision if he looked at it for too
long.

‘Why would you say
a thing like that?’ she said. ‘Diddlebury is not a murdering or robbing sort of
place. Shall I put the food colourings in alphabetical order or ranging from
light to dark?’

‘Of course it is,’
said Ray. ‘All English villages have terrible secrets. Some villages probably
have five to ten murders a year.’

‘I think light to
dark is quite pleasing to the eye. I must make a note to order more blue
colouring. I do like to have a balance of colours.’

‘I imagine some
murders go completely unnoticed. A few lonely old people getting bumped off on
their way home. Like Mrs Winterbottom. I’m sure she was murdered. I haven’t
seen her for weeks. Someone should investigate. I’ll get on the case.’

‘Mrs Winterbottom
is staying with her daughter after a bunion operation. Anyway, this is England
not America, Mr Wilson.’

She began to check the
packets of sponge fingers, running her hand along the edge to ensure they were
aligned.

Ray lost interest
in shelving and his work colleague. He took an unscheduled tea break.

He had been the
manager of the supermarket for two years. Previously he had worked for a small
film production company in London for three months, hoping it would be a
permanent career, until their financial difficulties had resulted in his
dismissal. He had served in a music store that had closed and been turned into
a coffee shop that made overly hot cappuccinos which burnt the roof of his
mouth. He had been employed as a film extra for one day. He had been edited out
of his only scene as a man buying an orange from a market stall.

There had been few
other highlights.

He sat alone in the
small office that served as a staffroom and accounts room. He read a chapter of
The Getaway while he drank his tea.
Briefly he was transported to a world of crime and dangerous living.

‘Mrs Mackerty would
like to know why there is no fruit bread in stock,’ said Julia, poking her head
around the door.

‘Right. Tell her we
are sold out. There will be more next week.’

She coughed
politely.

‘I think we both know
that will not work.’

‘Unfortunately
not.’

Ray put his book
down and drank a last mouthful of tea before walking back into the shop.

Mrs Mackerty was
waiting for him by the till. She was so aged that her back bent at ninety
degrees making it difficult for her to look up. She leant heavily on a walking
stick and every movement seemed unbearably arduous.

‘Now, Mr Wilson - that
is you is it not?

‘It is. Good
morning.’

‘I think we spoke
before about how important fruit bread is for my bowels.’

‘Yes, Mrs Mackerty.
I believe we did.’

‘I need a good
supply of dried fruits to keep things moving.’

‘Absolutely.’

‘At my age things
are not quite as efficient as they once were.’

Ray had an
unpleasant image.

‘I understand
completely, Mrs Mackerty. I will ring the supplier and make a new order
immediately.’

‘I should hope so,’
she said, and with enormous effort turned herself around to continue her
shopping.

‘Well handled as
always, Mr Wilson,’ said Julia, as she made a pyramid of biscuit boxes nearby.

‘Thank you, Julia.
If there’s one particular skill I have developed over the last two years it’s
dealing with unhappy elderly customers.’

‘You most
definitely have, Mr Wilson.’

‘I should get some
of those stars they earn in fast food restaurants. Five stars for keeping
pensioners well stocked with fibre.’

‘You certainly
should.’

‘Perhaps I can be
sponsored by a cereal company?’

Mrs Mackerty was
reappearing from one of the aisles. Ray watched her shuffle towards him, each
foot moving no more than a few inches at a time. She paused in front of a
pillar and looked as though she might attempt to speak to it before shaking her
head and moving on. She eventually stopped in front of Ray and studied his
shoes to make sure she had a person and the right person.

‘Is that you, Mr
Wilson?’

‘Yes, Mrs Mackerty.
How can I be of assistance?’

‘Well I must say
this is disappointing. I am afraid I hate to do this but I feel it is my duty
to contact the regional manager once more.’

‘What seems to be
the problem?’ said Ray.

Mrs Mackerty
claimed that she had contacted the regional manager several times in the past,
although as Ray had never heard anything from the man himself, who might have
been called David, he assumed that she had been contacting the wrong person. He
wondered how confusing it would be to be telephoned by a constipated, elderly
woman to complain about her dietary requirements.

‘There is a
distinct lack of tinned prunes in the fruit aisle. I looked carefully with my
magnifying glass. I expect to be spending a prolonged period of time in the
toilet this evening, and I hold you personally responsible.’

‘Sorry,’ said Ray, before
adding: ‘Have you tried yoga? My wife loves it. As far as I know she’s very
regular.’

At lunchtime Ray
decided, as he often did, that it had been a difficult enough day to warrant a
visit to The White Dragon. He left Julia in charge of the shop, with the added
responsibility of ensuring that the cheese section was categorised in a
sensible and efficient way.

‘Geographically, Mr
Wilson?’

‘Very wise.’

‘Thank you. Enjoy
your lunch.’

Outside it was
relatively warm and the rain was unexpectedly light. Fallen leaves eddied
around his feet as he made the short walk to the pub – thatched, white, with a
front door that required anyone under six feet to duck and a sign with a faded White
Dragon that swayed and squeaked rhythmically in the wind.

Inside it was
typically busy. Diddlebury was a village where many people had very little to
do. Consequently, a visit to the pub was a significant activity. Couples had
lunch together, people drank in small groups and as is often the way men sat on
stools at the bar and consumed far more units of alcohol than government
campaigns recommended.

Ray sat on a
barstool beside Tony, a man in his late forties with a beer belly of
considerable size, thick glasses and a smart appearance. He had been a
successful businessman in his younger years, or so he said, but he was
prematurely retired and made the most of his free time by leaving his wife at
home and drinking heavily. He wore a pink shirt, sleeves rolled up to reveal
huge forearms, and brogues that had been carefully polished. His face was lined
and flushed with traces of broken veins beginning to appear at the sides of his
nose. Sometimes, on special occasions, he broke unannounced into song.

‘Good to see you,
Ray. A drink to keep out the cold?’

‘Very kind, Tony,’
said Ray. ‘Just the one though. This is only a lunch break.’

‘Climate change,’
said Michael and shook his head. He sported the soft physique that it took
years of neglect and great quantities of saturated fat to create. He was in the
process of growing a subtly lopsided goatee. ‘I was reading just this morning
that England could be completely underwater in the next ten years. And there
was me thinking we were going to float towards France. Seems that sinking is
much more likely. At least I think it was England. Would that be right, Tony?’

‘Perhaps just a
part of the country, Michael? Like Essex or one of the bits on the side. Can’t
imagine the whole lot will go.’

‘Exactly,’ said
Michael. ‘Essex will sink for sure.’

He stared
thoughtfully at the fire then made his way towards the kitchen.

To fill the silence
Ray decided to tell Tony about his new business venture.

‘So, Tony, I was
thinking I might try and start my own detective agency.’

‘Genius,’ said
Tony. He ate a handful of peanuts. ‘Tell me more.’

‘I was thinking
about investigating some of the mysteries that happen locally.’

‘Wonderful,’ said
Tony. ‘I had better find a gun from somewhere. Do you know anyone who could get
me a gun?’

‘No.’

‘Pity.’

‘I think they’re
illegal.’

‘In England?’

‘Yes.’

‘Perhaps I could
carry a machete? They’re always useful in a fight.’

He performed a
series of swift, chopping motions with his right arm holding an imaginary weapon.

Ray should have
realised that Tony was in no particular state to be discussing new business ideas.
The empty glasses were a strong indication that he was not drinking his first
pint of the day. His eyes had begun to lose some of their focus and Ray could
not decide if he was looking at him or at a point just above his left shoulder.

‘Well, I was
planning on just finding a few basic local stories to start with,’ said Ray.
‘Nothing too dramatic. Maybe a simple robbery to look into. Missing garden
furniture. Stolen fruit.’

‘That should be
easy enough to arrange. Let’s start with Herbie. He knows plenty about criminal
activities.’

A brooding figure
with well-muscled arms and a face that seemed as though at some point a tree
had fallen on it looked up from where he sat at the bar reading the local
gazette.

‘You mention me?’
he said.

Herbie was a more
recent addition to the village. He had lived in London most of his life but had
moved into the countryside after a bitter divorce, or so he told people. His
physical size and stern manner had been a source of constant gossip and it was
assumed, with no actual evidence, that he was hiding from a criminal past.
Sometimes, to add to the rumours, he wore sunglasses on cloudy days.

‘Know of any
robberies or murders lately?’ said Tony. ‘My friend here was looking for some.’

‘No.’

‘He wasn’t saying
you had actually done any yourself, just if you had heard of them.’

‘No.’

‘Not that you look
like a robber or even a murderer,’ said Tony. ‘He was just saying that if
anyone knew about that kind of thing it would definitely be you, especially as you
lived in London.’

‘Afraid not.’

Tony raised his
beer glass in Herbie’s general direction.

‘Thanks anyway. Let
us know if you do hear anything.’

‘Fine.’

‘Bit of a dead end
there,’ said Tony, signalling that more beer was required.

‘Great work
though,’ said Ray, who was feeling a warm flush of embarrassment on his face. ‘Thanks.’

‘No problem. I feel
this business venture is going to be a huge success.’

‘Hopefully.’

‘Do you think we
need an office?’

‘Well...’

‘Sounds sensible. I
will look into it. We could have one of those golden plaques on the door. Make
it fully professional. And business cards. They are pretty useful. And
definitely brandy in a decanter.’

‘I should be
heading back to work,’ said Ray.

‘Right. I will keep
thinking.’

Ray finished his drink
and made the short walk to the shop where he spent the afternoon helping Julia organise
jams.

‘I’m not sure the
private detective idea was such a good one,’ said Ray, as he sat on the sofa in
the evening. Laura was eating blueberries. He was drinking tea and trying to
make some sense of the film they were watching.

‘None of your ideas
are very good, Ray.’

On screen two
characters were sharing a meal. The restaurant was candlelit and improbably
romantic. They were drinking wine and eating fish.

‘Is that sea bass?’
said Ray.

‘I’m not sure the
fish is central to the plot.’

‘It could be
symbolic.’

‘Symbolic sea
bass?’

‘Is this Love Actually?’

‘No.’

‘Then why is Colin
Firth in it?’

‘He’s not.’

Ray squinted at the
screen.

‘Oh. That must be
the other one.’

It seemed they were
now sharing a chocolate fondant which was his favourite dessert. At least it
looked like a chocolate fondant. He wanted to ask but decided not to.

‘I just think it
would be simpler if we lived in a more normal village,’ said Ray. ‘I only told
Tony and things got out of hand within a few seconds.’

‘What things?’

‘The whole
detective thing.’

‘You were talking
about Colin Firth.’

‘Before that I was
telling you about Tony. And the detective agency.’

‘Are you going to
talk the whole way through this film?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Why have you been
hanging around in the pub talking to deluded alcoholics? I thought you were
supposed to be in the supermarket making sure there were enough bread rolls and
other important tasks.’

‘I’m going upstairs,’
said Ray.

He left her alone
in the lounge and went to his study. It was a small room, cluttered by books
and strange drawings on scraps of paper. On the desk was a laptop and beside it
several empty teacups and biscuit wrappers. Ray had been working on an advert
for his detective agency and he picked a piece of paper up, covered in
scribbles and annotations, turned it over several times in his hands, then
screwed it into a ball and threw it to join the other discarded ideas on the
floor.

Through the window
he had an excellent viewpoint of the village. He could see the dim shape of Mrs
Wilkins as she watered plants in the kitchen. She was one of his least
favourite neighbours. She complained bitterly and constantly about the state of
his garden and how his apple trees apparently shed fruit and leaves over the
fence into her property. Mr Dawson was doing some kind of exercise routine with
a metal bar that involved swinging his upper body from side to side. He had
been in the military some years before and enjoyed keeping fit in a variety of
unusual ways, including jogging around the village dragging a sledge loaded
with bricks.

Ray pressed his
face to the glass to see the upper window of the Hamilton’s residence where
their teenage son was playing games of some kind, flashing lights erupting at
seemingly irregular intervals. To the far right he could see the house
belonging to Miss Stokes, a spinster and an excellent baker who repeatedly won
the annual pie making contest at the village fete. That summer she had taken
the title with a superb steak and stilton number that he had been lucky enough
to taste. Her curtains were open and he could see where she sat in a rocking
chair in the bedroom.